Chinese take shorter trips and luxury hotels

But ITB Berlin report says Europe is losing market share
The Chinese love of travelling is tremendous. After two decades of rapid and mostly double-digit growth, China has developed into one of the leading global source markets for foreign travel in recent years, says a new World Travel Monitor report by IPK International commissioned by ITB Berlin.
Around 80% of foreign trips made by the Chinese are now holiday trips. But the strongest growth seen in the last few years has purely been generated by short trips of up to one week, while the number of longer trips has declined.
No travel market is growing faster than the Chinese, who went on 105 million foreign trips in 2014. This includes 41 million daytrips and shopping trips, mostly from southern China to Macau and Hong Kong. Of the remaining 64 million foreign trips with an overnight stay, 27.4 million also have Macau and Hong Kong as their destinations. Excluding these figures, the number of international trips made by the Chinese is 36.6 million.
These 36.6 million foreign trips generated 171 million overnight stays in 2014. In comparison to 2007, the number of foreign trips increased by 168%, which represents an average annual growth rate of 16.5%. However, the number of nights spent abroad only grew by 27% in total, which was equivalent to 3.5% per year. This was due to a dramatic reduction in the length of foreign trips.
While the Chinese spent 10 nights abroad on average in 2007, the average length of a foreign trip has nearly halved to 5.5 nights in 2014. The reason for this is explosive growth of 444% in short international trips of up to three nights, which amounts to a 27% increase per year.
Above-average growth in the last seven years has been shown by trips within Asia and to North America. With 68%, Asia dominates Chinese international tourism, while 18% of Chinese visit Europe, 9% travel to Australia/Oceania and 5% visit the rest of the world. Europe has expanded strongly as a destination for Chinese travellers, with a 7.5% increase per year, but has lost market share to other regions of the world due to their stronger growth rates.
Meanwhile, dramatic changes in choice of accommodation can also be seen. The share of overnight stays for first-class hotels increased by 28% annually and has risen to 55%, at the expense of budget hotels. And the increasing number of trips with children is also remarkable, rising tenfold over the last seven years and now comprising one third of all foreign trips.TTG Nordic